Childhood's End
by Hail Ephiny
Summary: After four years of struggling, scavenging and isolation, Hermione meets a familiar face. War changes everyone, for better or for worse. [DRAMIONE] - War AU - LEWDNESS AND LEMON DROPS
1. Canned Guavas

War AU : After four years of struggling, scavenging and isolation, Hermione meets a familiar face. War changes everyone, for better or for worse.

A/N : Disclaimer and blah, blah, blah. This story is entirely unbeta-ed. All errors (and there are a lot of them) are my own fault. Sorry. This fic has a sappy title. Sorry again.

 **Chapter One : Canned Guavas**

 _Canned guavas_ , thought Hermione as she leaned forward on her tippy-toes, shoulder deep into an abandoned grocery store shelving unit. _Just give me one more can of guavas_. She grabbed hold of a metal cylinder and crossed her fingers mentally, slowly withdrawing her arm and hoping to be greeted by a lovely picture of said fruit _. Canned corn. Damn._ But it wasn't the end of the world. It was edible food and it was better than nothing.

Hermione huffed and turned to check the young boy standing next to her quietly, bundled up in a thick grey jacket with a scarf fastened tightly around his neck. Underneath his heavy woollen hat, little beady eyes peered out and around, observing silently.

"Stay close." She urged him in a hushed whisper. "Don't wander away." The little boy complied without a sound, moving closer to the young witch's leg and looking up at her curiously.

The last thing she needed was for him to go wandering off – again. The Death Eaters were doing their rounds more and more frequently, sweeping the land for anyone left who were not yet incorporated into their regime. Even here, in the middle of nowhere, in a tiny little abandoned town with no sign of life, they were searching. Hermione wondered if they would just search forever, until there were no supporters of the Order left in the world at all.

She remembered that atrocious like it had happened only yesterday, fresh in her memory; explosions, panic, crucios and killing curses whizzing around in the air like they were nothing. So many good people lost and so many unnecessary deaths. Dobby had perished, trying in earnest to protect them all, and it had surmounted to nothing. It was so pointless, the fighting, the death. She felt nothing but terror and confusion at the waste of it all.

She had lost Harry and Ron, her two best friends, someone in the midst of battle, and after so many failed attempts and miscommunications she wasn't even sure if they were alive or among the casualties. She recalled the sheer revulsion and shock that had consumed her upon discovering both Tonks and Remus' lifeless bodies sprawled haphazardly on the floor of their temporary dwelling, and then hearing a faint cry emanating from a small swaddled bundle near them.

She had made a quick dash for the bundle before grabbing the portkey Kingsley had procured for her and feeling herself being pulled away to another location, a secret place where she could hide and recover.

But that had been four years ago.

Hermione slipped the canned corn into one of the large pockets of her thick coat, turning to the small boy and outstretching her hand. He reached his own gloved hand out instantly, holding onto Hermione's in his weak grip.

"Let's go, Teddy." She exhaled, leading them out of the abandoned store and into the open.

It was cold outside. The winters in this part of the world were rather unforgiving, as Hermione had found. She had become accustomed to a thick blanket of snow on all outdoor surfaces which stayed in place for a good part of the year. It made scavenging a rather tedious job, especially with a small child in tow. And she had no idea where she was either, which only complicated her communication attempts. She was clever enough to figure out that the words displayed on the neglected shopfronts and stores in the town were in Russian, but that didn't help pinpoint their location by any means. She was lost, tossed into a far corner of the world and cut off from the wizarding community. Well, not entirely. The valiant supporters of Voldemort were still there to keep her company.

She led the way ahead through the snow, passing emptied out stores and eateries. At one point she assumed they would all have been bustling with life, but not now – not after the Death Eaters had begun their search. She presumed that the muggles had either been killed or captured, thankfully before she had arrived. The magical folk would have been captured, too, and either forfeited themselves to Voldemort, or were disposed of. Such was the present state of the world.

 _Better_ _to reign in_ _Hell_ _than_ _serve_ _in Heaven_ , she thought bitterly to herself as she recalled the Muggle poem.

They didn't walk too far, taking into consideration Teddy's small legs, and their breath hung in the air in front of them despite the afternoon sun. There was another small shopping mart ahead and Hermione ducked in as they passed, eyeing the vicinity carefully before deeming it safe. She was after canned goods that ideally were still in date – a rarity now that most of the shelves in this part had been picked dry. She made her way down one of the isles, littered by old shopping bags and newspapers, stopping to eye up a box of dried lentils (or rather, what she thought were lentils from the picture on the front of the package).

"Stay near me, Teddy." She instructed, and the small boy nodded his head as well as he could with his tightly wrapped scarf, looking around again as Hermione rummaged as inaudibly as she could through the shelves. She opened the box of lentils quietly, removing and inspecting the inner plastic package carefully before slipping it into one of her extension-charmed pockets. Lentils were easy to make, water wasn't an issue, and they lasted for days on end. She then eyed up some cans, checking the expiration dates and letting out a small annoyed groan when she found they had already perished.

She was just slipping another edible can of corn into her pocket when she heard it – another can sliding against the metal of the shelving unit one isle over, quiet but definite. She snapped her eyes down to Teddy who was standing as still and as silent as ever and her skipped a beat. They weren't alone. Desperately hoping it was just a simple cat or some other half-starved animal that was foraging, Hermione slowly raised a finger to her lips, lowering her brows at Teddy in an instructive way. He mimicked her action, raising a little finger to his own rosy little lips in return. She tightened her own scarf as she silently moved towards the end of the isle, Teddy behind her, and chanced a look around the corner to where she heard the sound originate from.

A black robed figure stood not five feet away from her, hood drawn up, seemingly inspecting the cans on the reverse side of the unit that Hermione was standing by. She peered at it, watching cautiously as the figure moved casually from one can to another, holding each one up just like Hermione had been doing to finding the expiry stamp.

 _A little peculiar for a Death Eater_ , she thought, _to be picking through the abandoned scraps left in this town_. But the figure was no doubt dressed in Death Eater robes, face hidden by the black hood. Perhaps they were getting a little desperate, too. It wouldn't surprise her if Voldemort forced his followers to scurrange around for their own food like the rats that they were. It would be very fitting, indeed.

The figure was tall, no doubt masculine, and seemed somewhat distressed as it rummaged silently. Hermione would have laughed if not for the fact she was cut short on time. The next series of events played out in slow motion to Hermione because they happened so abruptly and out of sync. She didn't hear what had startled the figure, but something had, something in her direction had alarmed it and it had frozen, like a deer caught in headlights before pulling a wand out of nowhere and directing it right at her. She heard a muttered _expulso_ , but her feet were already moving to grab Teddy and run. A loud explosion rocked the small mart and knocked her sideways, pushing her into another isle. She grabbed for and held tightly onto Teddy and made a beeline for the exit. He wrapped his small arms and legs around her and held on like a limpet, no doubt from experience, as she fumbled blindly around the foodstuffs in one of her deep coat pockets for her wand. She looked back over her shoulder only to see another burst of light coming her way and darted just in time before finally finding and withdrawing her wand. She cast a quick _everte statum_ in the figure's vague direction before turning on her heels and sprinting, back into the thick snow which slowed her down immensely.

Dear Gods, it was like running through tar and she was panicking, out in the open with absolutely no cover and no protection. Her eyes darted around wildly, squeezing Teddy tightly with one hand as she held out her wand in the other. She ducked behind a line of abandoned cars on the street, trying desperately to be quiet but the snow crunching underfoot was betraying her location.

"Wait," She heard a muted voice call but it was muffled by the blood pumping in her ears as she tried to frantically escape. She didn't have time to reflect on it, she had to move. No doubt Snatchers and more Death Eaters had heard the loud ruckus and would be apparating themselves to her location in seconds. She needed to get away as speedily as she possibly could.

Ducking behind the fortunately placed cars, Hermione trudged through the snow with delayed speed, slipping occasionally but righting herself before falling. Teddy still held onto her for dear life and she cradled his small body close to hers with her free hand. She was aware the black figure had not only located but begun following her.

"I said wait, goddamn it!" She heard the figure yell again, and _just where did she know that voice from_? She tried to ignore the familiarity, pushing ahead in larger strides. "Granger, wait!"

How did he know _her_ name? She paused, hesitating for a moment before she heard the air crackle with ominous magic, and knew she had made a mistake.

Death Eaters, two of them. She looked back over her shoulder. Well, three of them if she counted the one who knew her name. That was weird in and of itself. The two newly arrived Death Eaters stood ominously, shrouded in rising black smoke and dressed in stark contrast to the snowy white scenery. She clutched her wand tightly in her cold hand, turning her attention to Teddy as she set him down slowly on the snow-laden ground.

"Teddy, I need you to hide, okay?" She whispered quickly, indicating to one of the cars that she had been using as cover. Teddy nodded, again probably understanding the scenario from experience and got down on his hands and knees before shuffling his small body under the chassis. "Don't come out until I find you."

With him well hidden, she turned back to the Death Eaters who had now spotted her, slowly making their way over. Their hoods were up, identities hidden, wands at the ready. _Cowards_ , Hermione thought but couldn't help noticing the first one had disappeared and now only the two newer ones were advancing on her.

"A non-believer." One spoke, voice laced with disgust as he rose his wand higher to conjure a spell. He was cut short when Hermione shouted a weak but speedy _flipendo_ his way, and then darted sideways through an emptied store front door. She hid down behind a counter, own wand out and ready, panting heavily as she anticipated a rebuttal and formed a duelling plan. She heard a killing curse shouted, and closed her eyes ready for her cover to be blown apart and into smithereens, but she felt nothing. A string of spells and curses were yelled in the distance, seemingly exchanged between the Death Eaters themselves. Quite confused, she opened her eyes and chanced a look above the counter. She saw a spell fly past the store front window but it wasn't directed at her. And then another whizzed by. And another, back and forth.

Someone was fighting against them, she reasoned, and squeezed her wand tighter before slowly moving towards the street again. Summoning her Gryffindor courage, Hermione peered out of the broken shop window. An _avada kadavra_ barely missed her and she ducked back and sucked in a breath, confused by what she had seen. The Death Eater, the first one who knew her name, was presumably fighting the two newer ones. Perhaps he wasn't one after all? But then why was he dressed like one? What in the hell was going on? Slightly miffed and needing clarity, she sprang into action, hauling a _confringo_ at one of the two visible black figures with fantastic precision. It got him straight in the chest and although it was blocked it did knock him back. This seemed to distract the other one because when two _avada kadavra_ were conjured and aimed straight for them, they hit them both dead on target. The two black figures slumped to the snow, lifeless and heavy.

The figure who had been fighting on her side appeared from seemingly out of nowhere, approaching the two outwardly dead Death Eaters cautiously and removing his own hood. Hermione didn't watch, darting immediately over to where Teddy was concealed and calling him out.

"Are you okay?" She whispered, concerned as she knelt down and grasped him on either side of his ruddy cheeks. "Teddy, are you hurt? Are you okay?" He was unscathed and she was relieved, drawing him into a tight, suffocating hug before she realised the remaining black-cloaked figure was now watching.

She turned and…


	2. Reuinion of Sorts

A/N : Sorry if the first chapter didn't make sense. Sorry if I'm away in my own little world and leaving major plot holes. I'm so very, very sorry. Disclaimer, etc.

 **Chapter Two : Reunion Of Sorts**

Hermione stared at him – just plain stared, ignoring all instincts that screamed not to, that staring open-mouthed at someone would have been considered rude in any other scenario. But she couldn't help herself but stare. It was almost like a bizarre, uncanny school reunion. Draco Malfoy, her childhood bully and known Death Eater, stared back rather cruelly and it dazed her, bewildered and caught her off guard. He looked remarkably different, slightly older of course and even paler than he had been in school. If possible, he was even more pointy-faced now, and obviously a little underfed if his sharp cheekbones and deeply set eyes were any indication. Of course, she doubted that she looked any better off. Scavenging for food provided neither a reliable or consistent diet to exist on, and the majority of her findings were offered to Teddy before herself.

But then as if sensing she was examining him, he sneered at her and suddenly all of Hermione's memories of the Malfoy Manor came flooding back into her mind. She had been tortured, her mind ripped apart and her body defiled right before him, and by his own family, on the cold hard floor of his childhood home, no less. And he had done nothing, said nothing, just looked at her in contempt as if it tainted his eyes to watch.

 _Malfoy_ , she thought but didn't voice it. Instead she simply picked Teddy up again, turned on her heels and begun moving. It would be a cold day in Hell before she acknowledged Draco, _the prick_. She felt a smugness bloom within her upon realising he was indeed scavenging as she was, struggling to survive just like her and picking through the remnants of what was left in this tiny town.

"Goddamn you, Granger! Wait!" She heard him call, heard him following her through the snow as she tried to depart.

"I'd rather not." She replied tartly, clutching Teddy tightly. The little boy watched over her shoulder as Draco followed them, tightening his arms around Hermione's neck. "There's about to be a gathering of your kind here and I'd rather not take part."

"You infuriating nit." Draco hissed, close enough to grab her by the arm and wrench her around to face him. She stared up at him defiantly, chin raised to show she was not intimidated by him.

"Don't touch me!" She demanded in a shrill voice, pulling her arm away like his grip scolded her and cradled Teddy's small frame.

Despite the malnourishment, he had become quite tall – tall enough to loom over her. Hermione jutted her chin forward proudly, although it didn't really have the same effect that it would have had years back.

"I'm not one anymore." He scowled, surprising Hermione by letting go of her arm as she had requested and dropping his hand to his side. His light eyes darted from hers to Teddy's form and then back again, brows furrowing. She watched him guardedly and observed that he did indeed look like quite the oddity. Aside from thin, his hair was a greasy mess of platinum, his Death Eater robes unkempt and tattered. He also looked frozen and she wondered why he was even wearing the robes in the first place, if they didn't represent anything.

"It's a farce." He responded to her unasked question, indicating down to his attire. "If I look like one, I'm less likely to be hunted."

She supposed that made sense. If he wasn't on their side anymore that it would be smart to blend in with them, lest he be caught. Though a Malfoy changing to the pro-Muggle side of the war didn't quite sound right. There was nothing the Order could offer him that Voldemort and his Death Eaters couldn't, in fact there was a lot less they could offer. He would have given up safety, security and protection – all for what?

"Cute kid." Draco broke her out of her reasoning with a sarcastic drawl she remembered all too well from her school days. "Who's the father? Fuck, don't tell me it's Weasle's." Hermione must have made an offended sort of face because he arched a suspicious brow at her and then added to his question. "Who?"

"A better question would be who is the mother." Hermione replied and felt a pang of guilt wash over her. Teddy was Tonk's and Remus' child and he never knew his parents, being too young at their demise to remember them. She had always made it very clear to Teddy that she was only his faux-mother, not his real one, and that his real mother and father had done both wonderful and brave things. It also startled her a bit when she considered that, in a way, Draco was Teddy's flesh and blood family. A cousin, truth-be-told and that was a weird concept to grasp. She doubted Draco needed her to throw that at him right at that moment, though, and so kept the information to herself.

"He's not yours, then?" Draco asked with a perplexed look and she shook her head.

"Are you daft?" She huffed at him. "I'd have to have been carrying him while we were still at school."

"Hard to tell." He took personal offence at her suggestion of his lack of observation. But he was rather preoccupied with ruining innocent people's lives that year, she had thought. Not a lot of time to noticed the small details. "You could have been up the duff and just covered it well, what, with all the frumpy school jerseys you wore."

"Oh, do shut up." She frowned and turned again, thinking about all the times she took those jerseys for granted. What she wouldn't do to have one right now.

"Sorry," Draco called as she tried to depart from him again, a phrase that was so utterly un-Malfoy-ish that she turned back to make sure she had heard it right. He was apologising? What in Harry's name was going on? "We have a safehouse not far from here if you're looking for shelter."

Hermione eyed him suspiciously and he met her gaze with a rather blank look. There was no sneer, no grin or grimace or anything to give any indication that he was lying or teasing. He seemed rather sincere and so unlike himself. It was eerie for someone who she knew to be so horrible to be acting so civil.

"We?" She questioned, after a brief pause.

"My…mother and father."

She heard the hesitation in his voice and concluded something wasn't quite right there. His tone seemed to change at the mere mention of them.

"Your parents are here, too?" Hermione asked doubtingly, wondering just how on Earth even he had ended up in the same location as her, let alone his whole family. She couldn't help but notice he kept glancing up and around at their surroundings, maintaining eye contact for only minimal amounts of time.

"We _all_ turned ourselves over to get away from You-know-who." He accentuated the word _all_ , looking rather frustrated with having to divulge his story to her. "The Order, or what was left of them, gave us a portkey once we were declared as defectors."

He then pulled his black hood back up, striding ahead and muttering.

"If you want to come with, then we have to move it."

Hermione faltered. Surely his parents wouldn't exactly be welcoming to her, one of the _Mudbloods_ they all had been so eager to eradicate not so long ago. But then maybe there was something not quite right there, as well. Defection would have seemed like a cowardice move, right up the Malfoy family's alley, if not for the fact it bought about more complications than they were already facing. She wondered again why they even decided to defect at all. Had they all suddenly sprouted consciences since she had seen them last? Since she had been abused and _crucioed_ within an inch of her life inside their own residence?

Draco wasn't waiting, he was leaving no matter what she chose to do. She looked down in her arms at Teddy, his chubby little wind-burnt face looking back at her innocently. She supposed it would be nice to have somewhere to stay that was relatively safe, if just for one night. Hopping from place to place was exhausting for the both of them and she was sick of having to sleep with one eye open, wand at the ready just in case.

She followed.

A safehouse. That was what Draco had called it, although truthfully it looked like a cross between Hagrid's hut and the Shrieking Shack. It was very dilapidated, nestled in between other similar looking buildings which all appeared equally as run down. Perhaps it was a smart move, hiding in the most run-down area he could find to avoid detection.

"Just a warning," Draco called back to her from where he marched ahead as they approached, their trek through the snow had otherwise been in silence. "My father…well, he's not really…"

Draco seemed to be at a loss for words, which in itself was a rare sight to behold. Hermione furrowed her brows. She had wondered what would have swayed Lucius Malfoy enough to betray Voldemort. She could picture Draco's mother just trying to protect herself and her son, but his father? She had thought that he and his Dark Lord had been on very good terms before the war had begun.

"He's not really _with-it_ at the moment." Draco finished, before adding, "I don't even think he really knows where he is. We used to say Aunt Bella was the crazy one in the family, but now I think it might be-"

Hermione had stopped dead in her tracks at the mention of his Aunt, hurt splaying plainly across her face. Draco noticed his faux pas and stopped as well, his brows low as he watched her reaction. He had forgotten about her ordeal with his Auntie, forgotten about the way she had been treated. In all honesty, he had been trying to block that whole event out of his mind since it had happened, and he had almost succeeded.

Even after four long years, Hermione still felt the pain of that whole event quite clearly in her mind and it radiated right through her whole being, down to the scar that branded both her arm and her memories. She had escaped, yes, eventually, but at the cost of the Malfoy's former house elf. And it hadn't been long after that when she had been thrown across the globe to an unidentifiable location.

Teddy gave a little huff and kicked his small legs irritably against Hermione's waist, interrupting her thoughts.

"It's okay, Teddy." She soothed him, also soothing herself with the same words. It would be okay, wouldn't it?

The safehouse wasn't exactly protected by very strong magic and the spells really needed reinforcement, she noticed as they drew closer. Draco opened the door with some effort, stepping inside and flipping his hood back again in the comfort of familiarity. He visibly seemed to ease somewhat, moving toward a small kitchenette area next to the entrance way and depositing items from inside his robes onto a counter top. The inside of the house was just like the outside, in a dire state of disrepair. It was very dimly lit and rather dusty but Hermione spied a lone couch pulled close to a fireplace, which she noted was out and didn't look like it had ever been going. Opposite the fireplace, a gloomy stairway lead up to a shadowed second floor. That, apart from the small kitchen area, was it. Rather unlavish for a Malfoy, she thought to herself. She wondered how he was surviving here without his great assets and what she had always assumed were his many servants.

"Father is upstairs." He muttered, placing the cans and other objects he had collected on the counter in front of him carefully. "He doesn't really get out of bed, except to shower, and even then it's a fucking circus. Mother stays with him."

Hermione nodded slowly and placed Teddy on the ground where he fastened himself tightly to her leg. She inspected Malfoy's collection. It wasn't a very good haul, she noted, only a few cans of pasta sauce ( _why in Merlin's name would he grab such a useless item_ ) and what looked like some type of dried fruit.

"Can I unload?" She requested, dipping her hands into her own pockets to remove the contents. Draco didn't reply but inclined his head and so she began to heave everything out of her pockets and onto the counter. To her surprise, Draco seemed rather intrigued with what she had acquired as she began to withdraw various plastic bags and pouches, cans of fruit and small boxes of miscellaneous goods. It went on and on for quite a while and Draco realised why she was so slow when she moved through the snow, having to carry not only Teddy but almost an entire shopping cart of supplies with her as well.

It was quite a collection, she realised only upon seeing it displayed it such a way, and it covered the entire countertop.

But then, if this was what she was living on, how in the world was Draco surviving? And having to split his meagre rations between three people? Then she realised, in near horror at how ignorant she was being, that he almost wasn't surviving at all. Having been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Draco was evidently barely keeping himself and his family afloat. Years of having house elves waiting on him hand and foot had rendered him nearly useless when it came to roughing it. Oh, how the mighty had fallen. Both Harry and Ronald would have had a field day with this, and she could almost hear their laughter at the mere thought of it.

After a quick moment, Hermione's overwhelming compassion kicked in and she pulled out her wand. Draco froze for a second, fingers twitching by his sides as if he thought she was going to strike him and needed to respond. He was wound tighter than an elastic band, she observed, ready to snap at the drop of a hat. She didn't attack him, instead intending to offer him a hand.

"Right, let's go outside and start on the wards." She instructed in an overly bossy, Hermione-like way. He looked at her incredulously, shaking his head as he relaxed a little, somewhat satisfied she was not going to harm him.

"Step off it, Granger. The wards are fine." He muttered.

"They're weak." She accused, knowing fully well that he was probably the only one actually casting them. If his father had resigned himself to bed, and his mother didn't leave his side, she assumed Draco was the only one actually doing anything useful at all. He was the only one scavenging for food, which explained why he looked half-starved. "If we reinforce them, we could light a fire."

She watched Draco's cold grey eyes dart over to the empty fire place and back to her again, as if contemplating her suggestion. She could tell he was cold as she was too, and he wasn't wearing nearly as many layers as her. She wondered how he hadn't succumb to frostbite as she stared at him, dressed in a thin and flimsy Death Eater robe.

Eventually he reluctantly agreed, as she thought he would, and she followed him outside (with Teddy still attached to her leg) to begin on a protective charm.

"Would you like to cook or start the fire?" She had asked him once the wards were strong and in place and he gave her such a pained expression in response that she wished she hadn't.

"Really?" She questioned sceptically from where she tended to Teddy on the hardwood floor. "You can't cook or light a fire?"

"Servant work." He had sneered at her and shrugged off his robes, wearing only a t-shirt and set of ragged dress pants underneath. "I never had to do it."

He could light the fire of course, it was just a very simple spell, but it was the matter of keeping it going that he had never had to master. And he wasn't about to sit down by the hearth and shoot flames out of wand every five minutes to keep it alight. Energy, and by extention magic, were scarce.

"How have you been surviving?" Hermione asked as she occupied the young boy in front of her with a bag of boiled sweets she had found a day before, eyeing Draco suspiciously. "Aren't you hungry? Cold?"

He had shaken his head and, in a small fit of furry, she had stood and marched over to the fire, barking orders at him. "Right, go get me some small twigs and I'll show you how to light it."

Surprisingly he did exactly as she requested. He pulled a face and trudged over to the door, yanked it open and left. Hermione's brows knitted together in unanticipated worry, considering he might just freeze to death out in the snow with only a t-shirt on. But within five minutes he was back again, dropping a bundle of sticks loudly beside the fireplace with a sour look on his face.

She ignored it, crumpling up an old discarded newspaper she had found and sticking it in the fire's grate before stacking the twigs on top.

"They're dry." She commented out of astonishment more than anything and she heard him snort from beside her where he stood, looming over her as he watched.

"I'm not that thick, Granger, give me _some_ credit."

She huffed and continued to stack the twigs on top, uncomfortably aware that he was looming over her like a predator, then reached for her wand and pressed it below the grate to where some newspaper stuck out, uttering a spell. The newspaper caught flame but quickly died back down into only a smoking mass.

Grabbing the last piece of newspaper, she unfolded it and held it out across the hearth.

"Hold the other side." She instructed him and then pressed her side up against the bricking of the fireplace. He knelt down and followed her instruction, although he looked both confused and unenthusiastic as he did so, observing the newspaper bowing in the middle as if being sucked inward toward the fire.

"Are you sure this is-" He begun to ask but she hushed him, leaning closer to the newspaper and craning her neck to hear better. After a moment of what Draco thought was mere silence, he heard, rather to his surprise, a gentle roar of flames from behind the newspaper and then Hermione had peeled her side away from the hearth to reveal new flames that had sprung up and licked the neatly stacked twigs.

"Nice trick." He complimented, although it sounded more like an insult. "Why not just use your wand again?"

"Conservation." She replied rather matter-of-factly, and he understood all too well. "In times like this, I'd rather conserve all the energy I can and do something the Muggle way, rather than expend it unnecessarily."

At Draco's scow, she added, "Plus, it's only a fire. If I had a muggle lighter, I'd rather have used that."


	3. Fireside Drawl

A/N : I'm so anxious that there are obvious HP universe things I'm blatantly missing or ignoring here, considering this fandom is so sprawling. Sorry if I'm overlooking stuff. Also, disclaimer.

 **Chapter Three : Fireside Drawl**

"-easier if Father didn't weigh a fucking tonne!" She heard Draco's offhand insults as they echoed down through the ceiling, stomping strides back and forth and the slamming of many doors. She stared up at the roof as she eavesdropped openly on her hosts from her improvised bed on the hard floor.

After successfully lighting the fire yesterday, she had been delighted to find the oven in the dusty kitchenette used gas (another Muggle concept that had completely eluded Draco) and so she had made use of one of the cans of pasta sauce he had collected, prior, and a large bag of pasta shells she had horded in her earlier escapades. The batch she cooked was enough to efficiently feed four and a half people. After dishing herself and Teddy a small plate each, and she was very very appreciative to have found a set of dusty plates in one of the cupboards, Draco had taken the remainder upstairs to where he assumedly rationed it out to his parents and himself. She wondered what sort of state they were in, considering Draco's current predicament and shuddered at the thought. Two adults rendered as useless as children by war, both unwilling to leave their room? How long had Draco let them be cooped-up up there? Had he told them there was a _Mudblood_ downstairs? That a _Mudblood_ had cooked their food? She herself had half expected him to claim she had poisoned it once she was done. If the sour looks he had given her as she cooked were anything to go by, she was very surprised he hadn't. He had kept quiet and seemed reluctantly grateful to have a warm meal, which made Hermione wonder again at what he had really been existing on.

He hadn't known about the gas oven, hadn't bothered to light a fire, and his protective charms were wary at best. She was surprised he was even still alive, let alone Lucius and Narcissa.

She had made a bed up for Teddy on the lone sofa from her discarded jackets and clothing items, and he was out to it like a drunken fairy, oblivious to all the commotion happening above him.

She vaguely wondered what Draco was trying to get his father to do, but tried not to dwell on the mental images it conjured. Interrupted by another round of flippant verbal offence, she sighed and lay back down. She heard the unmistakable sound of pipes clanging somewhere in the walls – a shower, she supposed.

What she would give for a shower, to wash out her matted curls.

Truthfully, she didn't think she could ever really have felt bad for Draco and his family before yesterday. They were, after all, the bane of her entire existence through high school. While Draco picked and prodded at her wellbeing during her curricular activities, his father belittled and depreciated her entire family. And, of course, there was the niggling fact that Draco had slain their old headmaster. Dumbledore had always been so good to Hermione, Ron and Harry. She couldn't just push the concept of his death right out of her mind. Draco was a murderer – a Death Eater. And he was even branded as such with a tattoo, no less.

She had hated Draco, loathed him, and had made her opinions discernibly clear on so many occasions during their school days. But he had been maniacal, laughing haughtily with his fellow Slytherins as he had stared down his nose at her and her kind, determined to show the world that _he_ was better, and that _he_ could afford better things because of it. Harry had told her about his very first run-ins with Draco way back when they still shared a common room, from his alterations encounter before their first year had even started, to a bizarre meeting on the Hogwarts Express where Draco had tried unsuccessfully to befriend him.

That had made both Ron and Hermione grin like the giddy school children that they were when he had told them. Harry hadn't wanted to be friends with Draco, and for that she was very thankful. Who in their right mind would have, though? He was atrocious to everyone, even the very few people who he seemed to surround himself with. The other _pureblood elitists_ who were just as unagreeable as him.

Hermione fisted her hand automatically as she heard footsteps coming down the staircase behind the couch. She sat up, eyeing a dishevelled Draco as he walked glumly over to the kitchen area and rummaged in the above cupboard for a glass.

"Hot water." He muttered as he stuck his glass under the kitchen sink tap and turned it. A heavy stream of water filled both the glass and the sink and then steam rose up into the darkened night air in front of him. "How did that happen..?"

As if feeling Hermione's eyes watching him, he stared over to where she sat and quirked a brow. "Father wouldn't… _cooperate_. Sorry if I woke you."

She shook her head and glanced at Teddy who was still deeply asleep. "It's a wet-back, I suppose." She murmured in belated response to his question.

Draco looked at her blankly, and she quickly explained.

"The fire, I mean. It's a wet-back. My parents used to have one. It heats the water when the fire is going. Very good invention, don't you think?"

He stared questionably from where he stood in the kitchenette to where Hermione sat on the floor beside the fire, still brushing hair from Teddy's face. The small boy lay bundled and dozing in the spot where Draco usually curled up, exhausted after scavenging for hours, refusing to use magic to warm his body and shivering himself to sleep. What a bitter existence.

"And what is a lighter?" He asked abruptly, and observed Hermione's hand become motionless where it lingered over Teddy's face.

"A lighter?" She repeated, brows arching as she turned her attention to him.

"A lighter. You said you'd have used one to light the fire if you had one yesterday." Draco recalled. "What is it?"

Hermione felt the corners of her lips pull into a smile as she contemplated his sudden desire of knowledge regarding the Muggle artefact. If there was ever an unexpected question, this was it.

"A lighter," She begun, "Is a small device that produces a flame. It's filled with a flammable fluid, and you strike the top of it to spark a light. Really handy when you're camping."

"Camping?" Draco questioned, and Hermione was staggered by the fact he was pressing for information. "What is camping?"

She had begun to tell him what camping was, and how she had been many times with her father who was an avid camper despite his profession. Somewhere between her explanations, Draco had crept nearer and nearer to the fire she was sitting beside until he was cross-legged on the ground opposite her nest of blankets, still absorbing any information she offered.

It shouldn't have surprised her that he was so engrossed in their conversation. She understood he hadn't really had anyone to talk to except for his parents for a very long time and, having heard the extent of their communication through the ceiling, she knew that was a bit lacking. He probably yearned to have a normal intellectual discussion, and so he was engaging as best he knew how. Frankly, she didn't mind as she was in much of the same boat.

Teddy was a lovely, intelligent little boy – but he was mute. He had never said a word in his life, and Hermione wasn't sure if it was due to some medical issue she couldn't identify, or if it stemmed from the fact that Hermione was the only person he had ever known, who had ever talked to him. She supposed a lack of exposure could have very well resulted in his absence of verbal communication. But he was happy and heathy aside from that, and after four long years under Hermione's close watch, he could communicate very well with his physical expressions in leu of sounds.

"Dentists?" Draco screwed his face up at that, running his tongue over his teeth as she watched. He looked incredibly pale and ghost-like by the fire side. "Sounds horrid."

"Oh, no, it's fascinating." She ensured him. "There's so many different procedures and techniques to master. I always thought I'd follow in my parents' footsteps when I was younger, well, before…you know."

She glanced down awkwardly at the hardwood floor in-between them and noticed Draco sharply turn his pale wrist inward where he leaned weight on it. She could have entirely forgotten about the mark that branded his forearm, the dark blemish that eluded to his particularly bad choice in life. She hadn't noticed it earlier at all. Perhaps he was immensely good at hiding it, holding his arms in such a way as to not draw her attention.

 _Oddly considerate of him_ , she thought.

His guards were lowered and she had never seen him in such a state of ease before, and perhaps never this close up. He was absorbing everything she was offering him like a sponge. Her mind spun back to Hogwarts but the only memories she could conjure were those of him taunting her from his clique of elite snake-pit buddies, or flicking things at her during mixed-house potions classes, but it was all from a distance. Even as he witnessed her in the midst of torture administered by his own Aunt, it had been from afar. She had never seen him act so genuinely _normal_ that it felt almost whimsical, as if it was all just a strange dream that she might wake up from. And what would she feel if she did? Relief that it had been a dream? Or was she applying a value to their sudden companionship already?

He had shuffled in ridiculously close to her and the fire, which she suspected was because he was cold but wouldn't admit to it. At school, if he had ever been this close to her being, she would have expected him to physically assault her or do something just as dastardly. But he didn't. He just engaged in their discussion like a friend would. She wondered why he acted too proud to admit he felt the cold, but assumed it was another weird Malfoy trait that didn't make much sense. _Those bloody highbrow arses and their bizarre beliefs_.

Earlier he had fetched her an old blanket with which to make a bed for herself on the hard-wooden floor, which honestly was the most extravagant accommodation she had experienced in quite some time. She wondered if he maybe only had the one though, and if that was why he was acting overly ignorant to the temperature.

"Isn't dentistry supposed to be rather lucrative?" He questioned, sounding more like his old money-obsessed snooty self with his pompous drawl. Her heart leapt a little at that, but she wasn't sure why. Perhaps, if she concentrated hard enough and let her mind wander far enough, it almost felt as though they were back in a Hogwarts class again, and the war hadn't yet begun.

"It can be." She replied with a cryptic answer and stifled a yawn, absently wondering what the time was. "Geez, Malfoy, are you going to talk my ear off all night?"

As soon as she had said it, despite meaning for it to be light hearted, she wished she could have taken it back. His response to her apparent need to end their conversation had for some reason offended him, and she could see it very plainly on his unguarded face. He hesitated and then shut down, withdrawing and throwing up mental walls around himself again.

"You're right, I should get to bed." He muttered and stood up, making his way to leave.

"G-goodnight." She wished him, mentally hexing herself, but he didn't reply as he ascended the stairs.

Hermione had woken at the crack of dawn, as per her usual morning routine. She frowned, hoping to have slept in a little more and now finding herself wide awake with nothing to do. She turned to the fire and rekindled it, stoking the embers and throwing a new log on top that Draco had been gracious enough to bring in sometime before he went back upstairs in the early hours of that morning. She had marvelled again at how he had managed to find another dry fuel source for the fire. Teddy was still dozing next to her, his hat fallen to the floor and his hair a vibrant shade of vermillion in its absence. He almost looked like a little Ron when his hair was that shade, sans freckles of course.

A sad sort of pulling sensation tightened in her chest.

Considering her options, she stood up and stretched before heading over to the kitchen and looking through her possessions which still littered the counter top. She had more than enough ingredients to make a soup out of the stock cubes, freeze dried vegetables and lentils she had found.

Hurriedly she set to work, welcoming something to occupy her mind for a while. But inevitably, thoughts of the prior night seeped back in as she tried to busy herself, boiling water over the stove-top flame. They had been having such a genuinely pleasant conversation until she had gone and ballsed it all up. Draco had become somewhat, for lack of better words, _delicate_ after being isolated and cut off for so long, and she just had to go and tread all over his newfound confidence in her.

"What are you making?"

She jumped about a foot in the air, spinning from the stove-top to meet him where he stood on the bottom step of the stairs. He was leaning his weight against the wall indicating he had possibly been there for some time, observing her in silence. Hermione felt her cheeks go hot and she desperately tried to recall if she had been subconsciously speaking out loud as she was sometimes prone to do, talking to the soup as she cooked it.

He gave her a lazy half expectant look, but she found herself too engrossed in his appearance to respond. Instead of the flimsy t-shirt he had been wearing the previous night, he was now clad in a seemingly decent set of winter clothes, including a black coat. _Trust a Malfoy to be hording a set of expensively tailored clothes during a war_ , she thought. But the thing that caught her quite off guard was his hair. Gone was the greasy mess that rivalled her own. Now it was tamed, styled even, and washed – definitely washed. She raked her eyes up and down his body, ogling unabashedly.

He still had a questioning look on his face, still waiting for her answer, although it was fast being tainted by an air of smugness that was entirely too Draco for Hermione to stand. She quickly realised this must have been the reaction he was planning to evoke.

"You clean up well." She told him very sourly and turned back to the pot on the stove, the heat still high in her cheeks. "I'm making soup, if you can't already smell it."

While half of her mind was still wondering why he had suddenly put himself together, the other was angrily fizzing away at the likelihood that it was purposefully done to outdo her. Was the fact that he had washed and dressed himself satisfactorily an attempt at distancing himself from Hermione? To make himself look better in comparison? Were his elitist notions really engrained in him that deeply? So much so that they surpassed his natural primal instincts? Would she ever be able to wash her hair here, or would she still be resigned to roughing it in the open frigid rivers?

Draco was about to reply when a shuffle from the couch caught his attention and he quirked a brow.

"Oh, your… _child_ is awake." He pointed out, inelegance evident as he fumbled for the right words.

Teddy sat up and yawned, stretching his little arms out and over his head as he took in his surroundings. Turning and peering over the top of the couch, his eyes met Draco's and he froze mid-stretch, as if petrified on the spot. Then his lower lip quivered, and his large eyes filled quickly with wet stinging tears.

"Oh, Gods, no." Draco started, alarmed and striding over with his arms out as if to muffle the four-year-old. "Don't do that."

But Teddy was doing it anyway, and he opened his mouth and let out a wail that…never really came. Tears slid down his rosy little cheeks but apart from that, and a few sniffles, he was otherwise silent.

"It's okay, Teddy." Hermione appeared and pushed past Draco to scoop the small boy up into her arms. He calmed almost the instant he touched her, to Draco's relief, but he still found the whole incident perplexing.

Hermione caught him peering at Teddy with narrowed eyes and felt the need to clarify.

"He doesn't talk." She rubbed Teddy's back and he held on like a little monkey around her neck, sniffles settling down. "He's never talked, really. Although, one time he squealed when we stopped to pat some kittens we came across."

"So, he's silent?" Draco looked openly disturbed by the notion that Teddy was mute, struggling to wrap his head around it. "And he's not yours?"

Hermione nodded, worrying her bottom lip as she settled Teddy back on the couch.

"What'd you do? Steal him?" He accused, but it was said in a perky, joking sort of way that she wasn't even sure Draco could convey.

She remained silent, returning to the kitchenette and her simmering soup, purposefully ignoring him for now. After dishing it up, the remainder was once again left to Draco and his shut-in family members above them.

"There's a bathroom upstairs." Draco mentioned to her later as he deposited his empty dishes in the kitchen sink. She sat on the ground with Teddy, trying in earnest to clean the soup off his face where it had spilled and crusted. "If you want to…y'know."

He waved his hand around his head, indicating to his hair and implying that she may want to do the same with Teddy.

She hesitated only because risking a run-in with his mother or father upstairs might actually be nightmare worthy, but ultimately her own selfishness prevailed. She would kill for a wash and it had been going on two or so weeks since she had braved the icy depths of any rivers.

"That would be…wonderful, if you wouldn't mind."


	4. The Lookout

A/N : I'm rereading the books again and what a mistake. I'm now constantly comparing all my writings with JKR's, even though I know her stories are aimed at children. But her characters just hop around all over the place and mine refuse to move. Also, disclaimer.

 **Chapter Four : The Lookout**

There was a definite spring in her step, Draco had noticed, as she exited the small bathroom and carried Teddy downstairs on her hip. She was practically beaming to herself, ignoring the suspicious look he was casting her way as she passed him and placed Teddy down beside the crackling fire.

"I think we both deserve it." She said to the child before raising her wand and uttering a short drying charm to both of their heads. Teddy's damp and dripping hair suddenly puffed up into a feathery mop of shocking pink under the spell, forcing a giggle out of him. Hermione's own chocolate brown ringlets reformed, just as wild and untamed as ever. Draco took note of how pleasingly they now cascaded over her shoulders and framed her subtle features. Was he getting desperate or what? This was beyond sickening.

"You seem to clean up pretty well, yourself." Draco interrupted as he parroted Hermione's words earlier in the day with a snide tone, unsure what to make of his unexpected and unwarranted attraction to her appearance.

"What can I say?" She glared over to him, but her attitude was light-hearted. "I haven't had a decent shower in four years."

"Four years." He screwed his face up at that. Four years had passed so quickly and yet he had accomplished hardly anything at all. He had found himself and his parents a shelter, nay, _a shack_. But that was it. Apart from trying to collect enough food every day to get them through to the next, he hadn't made any progress. And in only the first day Hermione had arrived, she had them eating warm food and having hot showers – and enjoying a fire! He was appallingly ill-equipped to live the Muggle sort of life.

"Crazy to think about, huh?" She was pulling on her coat, the one with many pockets and Draco mulled her words over in his mind. Yes, it was crazy to think that she, a Muggle-born, _lesser-class_ witch was more proficient at surviving than he was. It was crazy to think that in the last four years he had done nothing but struggle and fail while she was seemingly succeeding in leaps and bounds. It was school all over again. A _Mudblood_ was running circles around him and his family, but for once he found it oddly difficult to get upset over. He found himself experiencing a weird emotion that he didn't often encounter. Dear Merlin, was he _thankful_? His parents would certainly be appalled.

She was heading towards the door and he assumed it was time to reinforce the wards and followed, Teddy trailing shyly after him.

She cooked noodles when it had darkened outside, keeping the kitchenette lit by some candles she found hidden in a cupboard. (Draco hadn't known they were there, of course). She had collected quite the assortment of spices on her adventurous jaunts and Draco was rather pleased to find the ramen-styled noodles weren't entirely as horrible as they looked.

Teddy lapped his up wholeheartedly while Draco had taken his and his parents' share upstairs to eat with then. Hermione wondered again what exactly he did up there when he ate food. Where they just huddled around in a dark and dingy room eating their pasta in silence, or were they talking? And if so, what about? Did they know _she_ was downstairs or did they assume Draco had just become a wiz with Muggle technology unexpectedly? It was all so strange and bizarre to think about.

When Draco had returned with his dishes, she had made him sit next to the fire with her and initiated a stock-take. He reluctantly agreed and they went through every item on the counter, identifying what they had plenty of, what they were low on and what they were missing but should try to acquire. Teddy fell asleep on the couch listening to the droan of list making and systematising.

It was such a Hermione thing to do, to go through everything, make a list and try to bring organisation to the chaos. In school he would have given her shit for acting so bossy and domineering, but so far her attitude seemed to be bettering his life and again he found it difficult to muster the familiar resentment he had historically felt.

Hermione noticed the ease in which he was complying, and found herself once again captivated by how weird and dream-like the situation was. She kept waiting for him to revert to his usual snarky self.

"Draco," She began, looking up from the scrap of paper she had been writing on. She knew she was tempting fate with her following sentence. "Are your parents okay? I mean physically, are they alright?"

She wasn't sure what kind of response to expect, but she wasn't surprised when Draco leaned back on his palms, staring up at the ceiling above them and pursed his lips.

"Physically? They're _dandy_." He scoffed and then looked back to Hermione, brows low. "Why're you asking, Granger? You never cared for any of my family and we certainly never cared for you. Why start now?"

"Peace of mind." She shrugged and looked sideways to where Teddy lay, his gentle puffs silenced by the crackling fire. "I would feel better knowing they are physically well."

"Well then, you can rest your mind and butt out of my family's affairs." He stated severely and Hermione thought she must have struck a nerve, but she nodded calmly and then went back to their list.

After what felt like another hour had passed, Hermione frowned and looked back up to Teddy. Draco had just eluded to a lookout point that was located not too far away, but was rather dangerous to approach. The building sat nestled in a large clearing of overgrown grass but the trek across the clearing lacked cover. She would have dismissed it, if not for the fact it was a lookout point and probably contained a good amount of vital supplies that they needed.

"We would have to go at night." Draco frowned, weighing up their options and watching Hermione's reaction. "It's just too risky in the day without any protection. All it would take would be one Death Eater to show up and all hell would break loose."

Hermione agreed with his reasoning, but knew that meant Teddy wouldn't be able to come.

"We would have to leave him here." She sighed and worried her bottom lip. Teddy had never been separated from her for long and she wasn't sure how he would endure a night alone ( _with his own hermit Aunt on the floor above him, no less_ ).

After a long contemplation, they decided it was ultimately necessary.

Snatchers. Four of them. Hermione hadn't seen a Snatcher in a while, and so she had assumed there were none patrolling this town. Her heart sunk as she realised that was no longer the case. The four men walked together like a pack of dogs, hunting for prey on the outskirts.

Hermione shifted painfully yet silently, her legs cramping up from being cold and motionless for so long. She and Draco had been walking through the long overgrown grass track near the lake away from the lookout point where they had found ample supplies – toiletries, rations and Muggle medical provisions. On their way back, they had been forced to duck and cover in the tall snowy grass as the Snatchers had made their sudden appearance, and they hadn't yet left. They kept walking back and forth across the path, sniffing the air and peering into the darkening distance.

"They can smell us." Hermione whispered with a grimace, thinking back to when she had been foraging with Harry and Ron. Back then, a Snatcher had caught a whiff of her perfume as he had stalked by, but her protective shields had fortunately been very sturdy. She had no idea what they were smelling now though and she hadn't been given the chance to even start a _protego_.

"We have to back up." Draco spoke with a familiar angry snarl as he whipped his head around to where they had come from. Still crouched, he begun to move his way back through the long grass. Hermione watched apprehensively. The grass didn't offer much cover and any slight movement was telling.

She was about to move herself when she heard one of the Snatchers yell from the distance.

"What's that over there?!" She needn't look back over her shoulder to see they had started advancing rapidly, having caught sight of the grass moving around them.

She heard Draco cursing under his breath before standing upright and breaking into a sprint.

"Stay down!" She urged, gripping her wand tightly before groaning and following suit.

"Get 'em!" One of the Snatchers called and she heard a series of unannounced hexes whizzing past and lighting up the dark ground.

They were almost back to the look-out point but beyond that there was nothing but the black, empty lake sprawling until it met the night sky.

"Crucio!" She heard Draco yelling as he looked back, aiming his wand imprecisely to where he assumed the Snatchers were. Hermione's automatic reflex forced her to tense up and trip slightly.

Nightfall was completely upon them, and everything was cast in heavy black shadow. Nothing was easy to make out, not even ground in front of them.

They made it to the water's edge, the Snatchers hot on their trail. Draco darted up a jetty, urging himself not to slip on its frozen surface as he aimed his wand behind. Hermione followed out of panic and then kicked herself for doing so. There was no way off the jetty and the Snatchers had them cornered.

"What the fuck do we do?!" Draco was pressing her for ideas and Hermione was drawing nothing but blanks, eyes darting everywhere as more hexes and spells whizzed by, barely missing them.

She couldn't think of anything – there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Why had she followed him in such a blind panic?

"One of 'em's a girl!" An advancing Snatcher yelled out in an eager way that made Hermione's skin crawl. She backed up further until the heel of her boot met the edge of the jetty.

"Take a breath." She heard Draco instruct, and she gave a squeak of protest as he grabbed her around the waist and threw himself backwards. She did as he said, sucking in a surprised yelp as she freefell with him back into the inky depths of the lake, instantly hit in the back by a cold wall of icy water.

Her chest constricted of its own accord in response to the sudden biting cold against her skin and she opened her eyes but couldn't see anything. She felt bubbles tickling her face but couldn't make anything out. Nothingness enveloped her. Pure black nothingness. She felt something akin to thousands of needles stabbing her all over, chilling her right to the bone. The water was cold to the point of painful.

Draco's arm left her waist and she grabbed into the black nothingness to reclaim him but instead only seized slimy vines and plants, hopelessly. He was gone and suddenly she was alone in the dark frigid cold with the Snatchers overhead. With no sense of direction, she wasn't sure what way was up or down. What way should she swim to take a breath? How long had she been under?

Suddenly her lungs were burning and there was a painful bursting in her chest, demanding she take a breath, open her mouth and suck in air, water, anything.

A hand grabbed her jacket collar and yanked her upward and she broke through the river surface, gulping in a breath of air gargled with water. For a startling moment, she was sure a Snatcher had apprehended her, and she sputtered and thrashed senselessly against her captor, stilling only when she heard Draco telling her to stop and to be quiet. He held her against the end of the jetty, keeping her afloat as he peered around for the Snatchers. They were gone.

Hermione tried treading water but couldn't feel her legs, they were so numb and detached, and her coat felt like a lead weight pulling her under. She felt so heavy, weighed down by her clothes and shoes. Slowly they managed to make their way around the jetty and dragged themselves up onto the river bed. Hermione knew they were in trouble when the freezing lagoon they had emerged from felt warmer than the air around them.

Hypothermia, her dad had always told her, came in three waves. In its mildest form, people were still able to walk and talk, but as it progressed they lost motor coordination and eventually curled up into a hibernation-like state until, inevitably, suffering from cardiac arrest. Hermione had gone through her first ten years of life believing she would die to hypothermia – or quicksand, which also seemed to be a very prominent killer if Muggle action movies were to be believed.

But thanks to her father's insistence of imparting all kinds of useless medical knowledge down to his daughter, she knew that both her and Draco were in the early stages of said affliction.

"We need to move." She grunted, surprised by the stiffness of her jaw as she spoke. They needed to keep moving, they needed to get home as soon as they possibly could.

Draco had partially collapsed in front of her, shaking violently in the moonlight as he struggled to find his footing. She reached numbly for her wand and tried to cast a warming charm. It failed twice before she got the movement right, and it only offered them both minimal heat. She felt incredibly drained and knew she had to conserve her strength.

They had only staggered a short distance through the overgrown grass when Draco fell again, this time emitting a low groaning noise as he tried and failed to stand back up.

Hermione grabbed his arm, desperately pulling at it to get him back on his feet, but her own hands were so numb it felt like she had wrapped them in cotton wool, and she couldn't get a good grasp on him at all.

"T-t-to fricken c-cold…" He ground out, teeth clenched together to stop them from chattering as he shivered aggressively. It occurred to Hermione that she had never seen him look so pitiable and helpless before. My, the times had certainly changed.

"There's n-no way we can make it back to the safehouse in t-this manner." Hermione admitted, wiping dripping tendrils of hair from her face. They would surely freeze to death before they ever got close. Hermione looked off in the distance and over to the right where the lookout still stood. At least that would offer them some form of shelter.

"G-gettup." She demanded desperately, her own words slurring together as she pulled at his arm again. With no small amount of effort, she somehow managed to drag him back up and linked her sopping arm with his, pulling him toward the lookout post. He fumbled clumsily next to her as she hurried toward the small white building and flung open the door, pushing him inside.

There wasn't much inside and most of the useful items they had already looted. Draco collapsed again against the floor, and Hermione held her wand out and muttered a shivery _lumos_ to look around. It was just as they had left it – bare and unhelpful.

"W-why is it always w-winter here?" She heard Draco snap, heard him peeling off his drenched coat.

Shaking, her eyes instantly took in the large curtained windows and she stumbled over to them, grasped them and with all the might she could summon she ripped them from their rails where they shielded the window awnings. They weren't blankets but they would have to do.

"T-take of y-your clothes." She ordered as she dragged the curtains back to where Draco had slumped to the floor, shivering violently in a forming pool of river water. He looked at her venomously as if she had abruptly been cursed with a second head.

"Just d-do it." She pleaded, huffing into her hands in a desperate attempt to restore some feeling in them. She forced them to cooperate and removed her coat and kicked off her shoes.

She then peeled her shirt away from her skin and over her head, leaving her in only a bra and sopping wet jeans. She felt exposed and frozen and her breath caught in front of her, vapour betraying the chilly air that nipped at her exposed skin.

He stared at her angrily, nostrils flaring, but didn't say anything. His fringe, now damp, leaked river water into his eyes where it hung over his face. He looked like a drowned rat, and probably felt like one too.

 _Preserve energy_ , her mind urged her. _Keep warm. Save body heat. Now is not the time to get flustered in front of Draco bloody Malfoy._

"We need t-to k-keep our body temperatures up _._ You n-need to remove t-the damp clothes. They will _kill_ you."

Draco did try earnestly to make a start on the buttons of his shirt at the mention of death, but his hands were shaking too much to be of use.

"C-c-cant." He bit out, shuddering. "T-to c-cold."

Hermione willed her own hands to obey again and leaned closer to him, forcing his shirt buttons through their loops with more effort than would have usually been necessary. Her hands were shaking, and she leaned forward to huff warm breath on them as she undid his top and stripped him of it.

"J-j-jezzus" She heard him mutter and she grimaced in the realisation she had been giving him more than an eyeful of cleavage. She promptly pulled away, turned and began on the fly of her jeans. Did he really not realise how serious this was? That it was either _this_ or freezing to death?

"Body h-heat." She stuttered angrily, forcing her damp jeans down over her hips. "N-need to remove the w-wet s-stuff t-t-to get warm. Be serious." She looked over to him and indicated for him to do the same. He met her with an unpleasant expression before shuddering it away as he removed his wet shirt from around his shoulders.

He shook violently and huffed into his own hands, rubbing them together to try and create friction. Gingerly he lowered them to his fly and attempted to undo it but found he was shaking so much that he couldn't even grasp the zipper. Instead, he groaned a string of curses and tucked his hands into his armpits, teeth chattering of their own accord.

"You're s-so pathetic." Hermione announced. She already had her jeans off, and had grabbed a curtain, wrapping it around her shoulders. "I-I'll do it, then, lest you freeze t-to death." Her bossy tone had returned and she leaned back in to unzip his pants.

"F-f-fuck off." He stuttered, swotting numbly at her hands as he protested her actions. She successfully undid his fly after a couple seconds and hooked her fingers into the band of his pants, pulling the sodden fabric down much to his disagreement. Hermione had become very clinical in her actions and he let out an unexpected, un-Malfoyish whimper, pushing her away.

She sat back and wrapped herself more firmly in the curtain with an exasperated look, watching Draco struggle to get the remainder of his saturated pants off. He groaned again in defeat and doubled over, his body wracked with violent convulsions.

"You arrogant b-bastard." She declared and leaned forward on her knees to drag him up into a tight embrace. She felt him try and go rigid against her but with his bare chest against hers, he shivered uncontrollably and wrapped his arms around her back tightly out of instinct. He held her in a vice-like grip, shivering steadily and in time with her.

It was a bizarre embrace.

"Ohmygodsofuckingwarm." She heard him shudder against the nape of her neck, felt his hands pawing at her back, trying to pull her closer to steal her heat. She locked her curtained arms around him, trying to share what little warmth she had while simultaneously syphoning his.

"W-why do you make things s-so hard?" Hermione asked over his shoulder but he didn't respond and after a moment had passed she realised why. Or rather she _felt_ why. He very well could have asked her that same question regarding a certain something now standing to attention between them, pushing incessantly against her naval. Smart as she was, it took even her a moment to realise what it was, why it was happening and what was going on.

 _Oh dear God…_

It was purely natural, she quickly rationalised inside her head. The clinical nature of her mind took over speedily and forced her to see reason. It was normal. They were pressed up against each other and they were nearly naked. It was a completely standard reaction, entirely typical. Nothing strange there. He probably wasn't even aroused. Maybe it was just a consequence of major temperature change on the human anatomy. Yes, that was definitely it. That sounded entirely plausible, like it had come right out of a textbook.

But it was still awkward as all hell, and Draco didn't seem to be letting go. Maybe he was ashamed, she justified. She herself would have been mortified in the same situation, too embarrassed to withdraw and face the inevitable disgrace given the circumstances. Maybe it would help if she pretended nothing had happened, that nothing was happening.

"Malfoy, I need to—" She reached out for the other curtain with the intention of offering it to him, giving him a means to extract himself with a shred of dignity still intact, but he refused to let her go, holding her tightly in place against him. She made to pull away, but he held steadfast, fleetingly rapt with shivers.

His breath was shallow and warm against her ear, tickling and prickling her skin. What in the world was happening? Why wasn't he letting go? Wasn't he ashamed of his reaction?

 _Nothing to be ashamed off_ , Hermione's quiet and oppressed wicked inner self delighted, but she frowned all the same.


	5. Fire

A/N : This is the full, unedited, lemon version of chapter five. I thought...fuck it. Since FF doesn't allow linking, there's no easy way to get to this chapter if you want to read the R-rated version. So I'm just uploading it all on here. If you report me it'll have to go on AO3 and that would be sad. But oh well. Disclaimer.

 **Chapter Five : Fire**

 _It had finally happened_ , Draco thought to himself as he squeezed Hermione Granger taut against his bare front. He had snapped. Gone the way of his aunt. That was the only vindication he could gather to justify the way he forced the _Mudblood_ against his body, revelled in the way she fitted perfectly against his flesh. It was beyond mad.

He should have been hating it, abhorring the way her skin felt like fire against his own, heated and overly too intense in his frozen state. He should have pushed her away, been disgusted at the fact she had embraced him, dodged her arms like the plague. Even if it meant resigning himself to curling up on the floor and succumbing to hypothermia. Anything would have made more sense than what he was doing, squeezing her like he had any right to, like he hadn't been a right prat to her for her entire childhood - like he had been one of her friends.

Dear gods, she was warm, soft, delicate, supple, pressed up against him and shivering. It was sensory overload, combined with the full body pins and needles accompanying his returning temperature from their icy plunge. It felt like someone had set a fire ablaze under him and the flames licked pleasurably in his abdomen. All the sensation went straight to his head and then pooled down deep behind his bellybutton.

"W-why do you make things s-so hard?"

She asked, and there it was - that familiar enjoyable thrum that he attended to on occasion, a stirring heat in his groin that he knew she could feel. How could she not? She was pressed flush against him, right against his cock which pushed ardently into her abdomen.

But she didn't say anything, didn't do anything. Perhaps she was in shock, too horrified to speak. He could believe that. He breathed in her scent, face nuzzled into the curve of her warm neck, bushy hair tickling his face. He could hear her thinking, her mind going a mile a minute. He almost laughed at the absurdity of it all, but shivered instead.

"Malfoy, I need to—"

She tried to pull away but his arms were locked tightly and he was unwilling to let go, to lose the pleasant sensation of her body. Maybe she thought it was embarrassing and, truth be told, she wasn't wrong. It was more humiliating than _anything_ had been recently, but discomfiture was not something Draco dwelt on. Since defaulting to the losing side of the war, he had lost everything except for his parents, and any form of embarrassment paled in comparison to that. There was only a certain amount of shit that life could throw before one just stopped caring. Draco had been pushed far past the point of giving a damn.

"Malfoy," She shook him from his thoughts, her voice only a small wisp of sound. "Please let go."

He didn't know why he did it. Maybe it was the sound of her quite plead making his head spin, her quiet sultry voice threatening to engulf him. He withdrew from her just enough to see her face in the dim light. She looked more beguiling that she should have in the chilly night air, hair damp and flat, cheeks red, lips parted and emitting steamy little breaths that matched his own. He felt heavy lidded, entranced with her appearance as he drank her in. Maybe if he had known how damn appetising she was going to become he would have been nicer to her in school. Surely a _Mudblood_ who excelled in putting his own _Pureblood_ grades to shame couldn't truly have been _that_ bad? His parent's convictions had to have been wrong.

He watched her eyebrows knit together anxiously as he lowered his face to hers, shut his eyes and shuddered as his nose brushed against her face. She didn't pull away, and he took it as a sign to proceed. Cautiously he lowered his lips, ghosting a slight hint of a kiss across hers. Her mouth was warm and soft, inviting and tempting and oh so wrong but oh so right. This was ludicrous.

He wasn't quite sure what had happened. One minute she was letting him indulge and the next she had reeled back out of his hold and he felt a heated burn creeping across his cheek, saw her rub her hands together in pain. She was frowning, wrapping the curtain around herself and standing up.

She had slapped him. Well, he supposed he deserved that. He would have slapped himself too if in her shoes. It's not often one wants to shack up with the person who tormented them throughout their school years, who bullied them and their friends relentlessly for so long.

She thrust the spare curtain at him and he eagerly wrapped himself in it, hunkering down and not daring to engage her for the rest of the night. The discomfort in the air was palpable.

It wasn't until twilight broke that she said anything. And what she said wasn't quite what he had expected.

"Why did you change sides?" She questioned him, pulling her wet top back on and making a face. Now that the sun would soon be at their backs, they would be able to make the journey home without curling over along the way, despite their wet attire.

"Sides?" Draco asked, pulling his own sodden top back on. It was a horrible feeling. He had only just warmed up and now he was cooling down again. "You mean, why did we stop following You-know-who?"

Hermione glared at him, shivering. She clutched her wand tightly in one cold hand at her side and nodded. Was she just going to ignore everything that had just happened between them? Okay, he could play along with that.

"Mother, mostly." He replied coolly, watching her from the corner of his eyes as he busied himself with his clothes. "She wanted a guarantee that couldn't be given."

"That's not a very good reason to change sides." Hermione shot at him with a stern look. He wondered what she was trying to uncover with her line of questioning.

"It's not as easy as just changing sides, Granger. It isn't black and white." He shrugged his damp jacket back on and made for the door, looking back as she puffed out a frustrated sigh.

"Yes, it is! There's the good side and there's the bad side and you were on the bad side for a very long time."

She had a point, he realised. Their switch was quite the about-face and not expected of him or his family at all. Even the other Death Eaters hadn't expected their sudden departure from the ranks. But still was completely naive to his family's reasons for defecting. Having been hailed as Gryffindor's Princess for most of her life, he doubted she would ever see reason.

"Good side, bad side. You judge far too easily, Granger." He shook his head and waited for her by the door "Haven't your Muggle wars taught you anything?"

She grumbled and pushed past him to the lightening exterior.

It was a quiet trek back to Draco's safehouse. Hermione kept her mouth closed tightly the entire way and was thankful Draco did the same. His weird display of affection had put her on edge, questioning everything he was doing and had done. If you could call that affection? She didn't really know what the hell he was trying to do back there, but she was thankful he didn't bring it up.

She kept her mind on Teddy, hoping he was okay, that the fire was still going, that everyone was safe.

They had been safe. The wards were still firmly in place and Teddy was still fast asleep when they barged through the rickety front door and rushed to the fireside, waking him up in the process.

After warming themselves and separating to fetch fresh, dry clothes, the day played out very dully. Neither witch or wizard talked to one another. Draco barely came down stairs, except to shuck what he had deposited into his pockets from the lookout point onto the counter top with their other collection of supplies.

Later in the evening he watched her from the bottom step of the staircase as she busied herself in the kitchen. There was something about the way she had familiarised herself with where everything was that got on his nerves. This was his little hide-away hole, _his_ little shack, not hers. She had just moved on in and suddenly he found his control slipping away, despite it being _his_ parents tucked away upstairs, _his_ responsibility to look after them.

She had her back to him, mixing something in a bowl, completely vulnerable and unaware. His eyes flickered over to where Teddy lay dozing on the couch next to the fire, also completely oblivious. Silently he crept, moving towards her. She was still concentrating on the bowl in front of her as he watched over her shoulder mere inches away, mixing some strange concoction that looked like an alarmingly thick glue. At this proximity he could smell her, feel her body heat radiating off her back, hear her sigh and see her shoulders slump as she began to turn toward him.

"I thought you went to bed." Hermione was eyeing him with distain as he stood motionless, cold grey eyes staring into her honey hued ones. Evidently, she wasn't as unaware of his presence as he thought and, lost for words, he just stared down at her without saying anything. He didn't think he had ever been quite this close to her before and his eyes danced all over her face before he could stop them. Had she always had those freckles? A cute little button nose? Were her lips always this full and pink?

Dear Merlin, was this what he had been missing out on all those years he thought he hated her? Wrapped up in his _Pureblood indoctrination_ he'd been utterly oblivious to her charm. No wonder four-eyes and the Weasel hung around her so much. Draco willed himself to back away and retreat, but after four years of being pent up with nobody but his unwell parents for company, his body felt bound to snap if he didn't relieve some tension. It was the lookout post all over again.

Hermione was staring, almost challenging him to make a move. She had a fierce look on her face that he knew well from school, that one she gave him whenever he and his friends had been giving her a particularly hard time.

Instinctively he grabbed her face between his large pale hands and quickly slanted his lips against hers in a forceful way, holding her tightly as if afraid she would fight back. She did, of course. It was in her nature. Her eyes widened and she gripped his wrists tightly, trying to shake her head to detach him. She didn't know what he was planning to do, creeping up on her from behind, but it certainly wasn't this. But then, perhaps she should have known better after that strange incidence that morning. He was stronger than her, pushing her back up against the counter her abandoned bowl sat on. She let out a surprised gasp against his lips as her back whacked against the sharp overhang and he took the opportunity to quickly shove his tongue past her lips, forcing her to accept it. She tasted sweet, weirdly enough, like she had just finished one of Teddy's hardboiled candies.

Hermione fought him for what seemed like an age, hands scrabbling at his chest, trying to nip his lip to get him to stop. That wayward inner voice of hers flared to life again and told her to stop reprimanding, to cast her memory back to a time when this was what she daydreamed about. It felt like an age ago when she would let herself get flustered thinking about it, what her blond classmate's lips felt like against her own adolescent ones. Jezz, she had been a hopeless romantic back in the day, when she wasn't lost in a book.

Thinking about the memory, her attitude towards him deliberately changed and she slowly stopped fighting to simply let him kiss her. She didn't kiss back though, too thoroughly confused by her own emotional state to act on any sudden feelings.

Draco realised he had made a mistake when he pushed her away and let her go again. He had kissed her this time, yes, but he didn't near feel satiated as he expected. If anything, he felt more pent-up than he did before. He had a taste for her and wanted more of what she could offer. He furrowed his brows and resumed staring at her again. Gods, he was confused. He hated her. He had _always_ hated her, and her duo of buffoons who followed like they were attached at the hip. He hated her insufferable book smarts, the way she would sit in class with her stupid rat's nest of hair, hand permanently raised, begging for a teacher's approval. Aggravating to say the least.

But right now he found her intoxicating. Her cheeks were red and flushed, lips swollen and parted as she breathed heavily, eyes imploring and bewildered. He glanced down and noted the swell of her breasts beneath her shirt rise and fall dramatically. He shouldn't have been noticing such things and he should of been _slapping himself_ for daring to act on such abrupt urges.

"Draco, I…" She started and then trailed away, the sound of his first name feeling foreign and far-off as it left her lips. She stared back at him, his face pale and haunting in the dim light, like a ghost of his former self. She then did something neither one of them expected her to do, which was quite impulsive on her part and rather un-Hermione-like.

She leaned back up and pressed her lips against his, giving him a chaste and simple kiss that lingered, daring him to change it. He did, moulding his lips back to hers and this time snaking his arms around her waist, fitting himself firmly against her.

This was the first time she had ever kissed like this, with such heated passion. It was indescribable. His lips moved against hers seamlessly, although he was noticeably more experienced. She wondered if Draco could sense her lack of skill. She hoped to the gods if he did he didn't care. That was the last thing she wanted him to lord over her.

He was breathing heavily through his nose, pressing her back into the counter, rough and arrogant as she had come to expect from him. Breaking away from her mouth, he trailed to the soft skin of her neck and planted subsequent coarse kisses as he went. As if by instinct she craned her neck to the side, offering him a better angle and shocked herself at how easy the action come. Her body was eager to feel his lips, providing a giddy rush at having such a condescending, conceited jerk please her. It was both thrilling and frightening.

Gazing off to the side as she bare her neck, she saw Teddy stir near the fire and instantly bought her hands back up again.

"Stop." She murmured to him and indicated over to where Teddy was sleeping. Draco breathed out an unsatisfied grunt, following her line of sight. He was wound far too tightly to be stopped now. He grabbed Hermione's arm without offering an explanation and pulled her towards the staircase, dragging her all-too-willing body along behind him.

He wondered if she knew where he was taking her, if she knew what he intended to do.

They crept up the dark stairs silently and as he reached the landing, he pulled out his wand. Turning to the first door he pointed and muttered a _c_ _olloportus_ before dragging Hermione with him to the second door opposite the bathroom, his room.

Hermione took in the dim surroundings anxiously. It was a small neat room. Of course it was – it was _his_ room. He had never struck her as a disorganized person.

"What are you looking at?" He breathed into her ear from behind, closing the door shut and muttering a silencing charm. She could hear a smirk in his voice and desire willing to spill out. Creeping up behind her, he drew her hair to one side, nuzzling her exposed neck and ghosting his hands over the curve of her waist.

She jumped and spun, only inches from his face once again. His eyes were darker than usual, pupils blown wide as he stalked her slowly backwards until the backs of her knees hit his bed. She didn't reply, instead entranced by how close he was, by how striking his pale features were in the moonlight. _He could challenge Eros with that face_ , she thought hungrily. Gods, what was wrong with her?

He claimed her mouth again, her resolve vanishing every time he swept his tongue against hers, every time he suckled her bottom lip. Her naughty inner voice had broken its bonds, running free in her mind without restrain. She groaned and it surprised both him and herself.

He released her lips and drew back, pulling his shirt over his head in a clean easy motion and dropping it to the ground. This time there was no chance of hypothermia playing as a distraction and she took in his lithe pale frame, a true seeker's build if ever she had seen one. He caught her looking and gave her an arrogant smirk that he was so good at, fringe hanging in his eyes, lips swollen and well-ravished. He looked the epitome of delicious.

He had taken her hand again and drawn her onto the bed and into a seated position to straddle him without her realising, pulling at the hem of her top incessantly.

"Take it off." He demanded in a raspy, lust ridden voice that made her instantly oblige. That tone did wonderful things to a spot right behind her navel. She pulled it up and over her curls, leaving her in only a plain bra. Feeling bare and exposed, she leaned back into him where he eagerly met her mouth with his, claiming her with forceful, demanding kisses.

She pulled away soon after to allow his mouth passage down her neck and décolletage, his soft lips biting and soothing her heated skin. He was grinding himself underneath her, the same thing she had felt just last night in that rather awkward predicament. But now it was all she could think about, wanted to think about. She found herself moving her hips against his naturally, craving the contact.

He pulled back again, leaning his head back against the headboard of his bed.

"Your pants." He instructed her, tugging at the waist band. She made no delay in removing them, and was slightly embarrassed about how eager she was to do it. Did she seem desperate? Was that a silly question, given her position?

She had never done any of this before, and her heart thrashed wildly in novel apprehension. This wasn't exactly how she pictured her first time. In her youth she thought it would have been with Ron, after their victory in war, in some perfect candlelit setting right out of a _Mills and Boon_ narrative. Then, after a year had passed with a baby Teddy to look after, she thought perhaps it was likely that Snatcher might be the one to steal her innocence away. But instead of either likely scenario, it was apparently going to be with her childhood bully, while the battle still raged on, and that thought boggled her mind.

 _Its Draco Malfoy!_ Her rationality cried, attempting to thwart the desire inside from spilling over. _A fucking Death Eater! The enemy!_

 _It's Draco Malfoy!_ Her oppressed and usually well-restrained wicked side beamed happily as it run amuck. _That gorgeous blond boy who's lovely face had the fortuity of being acquainted with your hand back in third year and again just last night!_

Her friends would be ashamed, given she ever had the chance to see them again, if they were even still alive. She was acting like a needy slag, but dear gods she was loving it.

Draco was moving beneath her again, grinding his straining bulge against her core urgently as he moved his arms around her back, fingering her bra clasp and undoing it. She let the straps slip over her shoulders and off of her arms, exposing herself to him bashfully.

Draco made a struggled groan of a noise, leaned forward and continued to pepper her exposed skin with kisses. He suckled both the swell of each breast, and the underside causing Hermione to near swoon at the foreign sensation. No one had ever touched her this way – even she hadn't touched herself like this. When he latched his lips around a nipple her hands flew to his hair, a gasp escaping her lips before she could stop it. She was overcome by a sense of power as she gazed down heavy-lidded and watched him suckling against her, her hands caressing the soft blond hair at the nape of his neck and she rolled her hips against his. He emitted a low and drawn out groan against her skin, raking his cold hands up and down her back as he continued to grind and suckle. He was acting like a randy school boy, and she loved it. She surprised herself by how much she was truly relishing it, how much his desperate need seemed to rub off onto her.

He pulled back from her nipple with a string of saliva following his greedy mouth, looking up at her like a half-starved demon. Her conscience chastised her, telling her to get off and retreat, but she didn't. One arm left her back and slid between them to undo the front of his slacks. She watched, engrossed, as he reached into his pants and pulled out his cock, just as ashen as the rest of his pale skin in the moonlit room. She wasn't entirely sure what to make of it, considering this was the first one she had really seen in real life. Anatomy books could only take her so far. She supposed she should be pleased to note that the high school rumours she had heard years back were in fact true, that Draco Malfoy was rather well endowed. He stroked himself once and then looked back up to her, both hands moving to her underwear.

But he didn't take it off, instead he reached behind her and bunched the gusset to one side.

Holding himself in one hand and cradling her bum with the other, he leaned in to nip her neck and whispered heatedly against her skin, "Fuck me, Granger."

A shiver went down her spine as he spoke with that same adolescent snarky tone she had grown to hate, her core and insides aching to be filled and plundered by him. Part of her felt dirty that she should want that, that she should want _him_ of all people to do it. She supposed she had always found him attractive, and way back in first year she had even experienced what she would deem her first ever crush on him, despite his atrocious nature. So attractive, yet so forbidden. And now so readily available beneath her.

She felt him line himself up against her slick folds and inhale sharply through his nose at the sensation, waiting for her to impale herself down onto him. Gripping his headboard until her knuckles were white, she bade his request and slowly sank herself down, feeling what up until this point had been a small and untouched orifice stretch painfully in an embarrassingly agonizing way to accommodate him.

She wondered if he could tell she was a virgin, that she had never experienced anything like this before and didn't really know what she was doing.

He hissed, holding her arse tight enough to leave a mark but continued to sooth and kiss the skin of her neck. Hermione whimpered painfully, which Draco misread as pleasure and pulled her bum down, forcing himself in right to the hilt.

"Holy fuck," He murmured against her skin and fought against a shudder, eyes squeezed close in a snarl as he waited for her to adjust. "How are you so tight?"

She took in a strangled breath and tried to allow herself to calm down, for her muscles to relax around him. She leaned back down to kiss him and he angled his face up to hers, tongues mingling together and soothing her. She marvelled in the way he was making her feel, igniting a spark that she otherwise didn't know had existed within herself. He must have felt her relax because he rocked her forward with his hand and then pulled away from her mouth in concentration, willing himself not to come then and there. It was like he had become an unskilled virgin again after so long, every little movement and adjustment of her body pushing him dangerously close to the edge.

Using her knees as leverage, she rose herself up slightly and then sunk back on him again, feeling a sharp stab of pain followed by an amusing dull twinge of pleasure. She did it again, and found the pain at the beginning lessened and the pleasure at the end began to ramp up. She could work with this.

Draco leaned his torso back against the headboard, keeping an acute eye on her as she repeated this movement, hands on her hips and guiding her as she amateurly rode him. After a short moment of this, he rolled her hips instead, pulling her pelvis against his in an excruciatingly pleasurable way that made them both moan in abandon. They started a steady pace, and Hermione was rapt to find they seemed to fall into it very naturally, as if made for this one and only task.

Hermione dropped her head back, eyes closed, whimpers of pleasure escaping her as she let her hands rest on his broad shoulders, all thoughts of pain lost to the sensation of bliss. Draco watched, utterly enthralled as her breasts bounced rhythmically every time he thrusted upward, how her eyebrows knitted together as if she were trying very hard to stay together. He was intent on helping her come apart.

She was shouting now, vulgarities that her mouth otherwise wouldn't form, and Draco was appreciative of the _muffliato_ he had cast. Something about hearing Hermione Granger swear like a sailor really set him off, and he rolled her, without warning across the bed, and then continued his assault on top.

On her back, Draco found new ways to penetrate deeper, thrusting into her hard and fast like an unrelenting creature of pure unbidden craving. She clung to him, arms tightly around his neck and legs flailing somewhat uselessly like a novice as he claimed her as would a hungry animal. Heavy panting, the sound of wet flesh against flesh, the feeling of his weight on top of her. She raked her hands through his hair, pulling roughly as she felt her world slip away and her mind forget everything. There was a pulling in her core, a coil that Draco was wounding tighter and tighter within her. Timidly, she lifted her head and looked down past her exposed chest and naval to where Draco intimately joined her. She didn't know if it was the question he grunted out as she looked down, or the purely erotic scene that she witnessed her own body taking part in, but either way the coil within her snapped, rather shockingly.

"Like what you see?"

She came violently, biting down when he kissed her to muffle a scream. He himself sucked in a ragged breath, feeling her muscles convulse around him, milking him for his seed. A couple of thrusts later and he followed suit, grunting loudly against her neck as he faulted irrhythmically out of time, spilling himself deep within her in complete and utter fulfilment.


End file.
